Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Oil Reserves (oil + reserve)
Selected AbstractsWorld Oil Reserves: Problems In Definition And EstimationOPEC ENERGY REVIEW, Issue 4 2000Ghazi M. Haider Various controversial issues relating to the definition and interpretation of the term ,proven reserves' are cited and discussed. Furthermore, reserve figures published in oil industry periodicals and trade journals are reviewed and analyzed. ,Original reserves' (reserves plus cumulative production) of non-OPEC countries seem to increase almost linearly with time, especially since the early 1980s, with an average rate of rise of 15 billion barrels per annum. The OPEC trend, however, is rather ,distorted' by irregular revisions, and the rate of additions to reserves in non-OPEC countries seems to have surpassed OPEC countries during the 1990s. Nevertheless, OPEC, with its easily accessible low-cost oil, will very likely continue to be the paramount source of world oil for many decades. [source] THE VENEZUELAN HYDROCARBON HABITAT, PART 2: HYDROCARBON OCCURRENCES AND GENERATED-ACCUMULATED VOLUMESJOURNAL OF PETROLEUM GEOLOGY, Issue 2 2000K. H. James Venezuela's most important hydrocarbon reserves occur in the intermontane Maracaibo Basin and in the Eastern Venezuela foreland basin. Seeps are abundant in these areas. Lesser volumes occur in the Barinas-Apure foreland basin. Most of the oil in these basins was derived from the Upper Cretaceous La Luna Formation in the west and its equivalent, the Querecual Formation, in the east. Minor volumes of oil derived from Tertiary source rocks occur in the Maracaibo and Eastern Venezuela Basins and in the Falcdn area. Offshore, several TCF of methane with some associated condensate are present in the Cadpano Basin, and gas is also present in the Columbus Basin. Oil reserves are present in La Vela Bay and in the Gulf of Paria, and oil has been encountered in the Cariaco Basin. The Gulf of Venezuela remains undrilled. The basins between the Netherlands and Venezuelan Antillian Islands seem to lack reservoirs. Tertiary sandstones provide the most important reservoirs, but production comes also from fractured basement (igneous and metamorphic rocks), from basal Cretaceous sandstones and from fractured Cretaceous limestones. Seals are provided by encasing shales, unconformities, faults and tar plugs. There is a wide variety of structural and stratigraphic traps. The Orinoco Heavy Oil Belt of the Eastern Venezuela Basin, one of the world's largest accumulations (1.2 times 1012 brl) involves stratigraphic trapping provided by onlap and by tar plugging. Stratigraphic trapping involving unconformities and tar plugging also plays a major role also in the Bolivar Coastal complex of fields along the NE margin of Lake Maracaibo. Many of the traps elsewhere in the Maracaibo Basin were influenced by faulting. The faults played an extensional role during Jurassic rifting and subsequently suffered inversion and strike-slip reactivation. This created anticlines as well as fracture porosity and permeability, and influenced the distribution of sandstone reservoirs, unconformities and related truncation traps. The faults probably also provided migration paths as well as lateral seals. This is very likely the case also in the large, thrust-related traps of the Furrial Trend in Eastern Venezuela. Normal faults, many antithetic to basement dip, provide important traps in the Las Mercedes, Oficina and Emblador complexes on the southern flanks of the Eastern Venezuela Basin. Similar faults seem to control the Sinco-Silvestre complex of the Barinas-Apure Basin. Much of VenezuelaS crude (around 1.5 trillion brls original STOIIP) has been degraded and is heavy, Perhaps two to three trillion brls of precursor, lighter oil existed. While the known Upper Cretaceous La Luna and Querecual Formations are known to include prolific source rocks, a reasonable generation/accumulation efficiency of 10% implies volumes too large to have come from the reported kitchens. The country's vast reserves are perhaps better explained by recognizing that the present-day basins are remnants of much broader sedimentary areas. The source rocks originally had a much more regional distribution. They suffered widespread, earlier phases of generation that probably charged early-formed traps on a regional scale. These, together with more recent kitchens, provided oil to the present-day accumulations. This history involved long-distance migration and remigration. [source] Real Options: Meeting the Georgetown ChallangeJOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 2 2005Thomas E. Copeland In response to the demand for a single, generally accepted real options methodology, this article proposes a four-step process leading to a practical solution to most applications of real option analysis. The first step is familiar: calculate the standard net present value of the project assuming no managerial flexibility, which results in a value estimate (and a "branch" of a decision tree) for each year of the project's life. The second step estimates the volatility of the value of the project and produces a value tree designed to capture the main sources of uncertainty. Note that the authors focus on the uncertainty about overall project value, which is driven by uncertainty in revenue growth, operating margins, operating leverage, input costs, and technology. The key point here is that, in contrast to many real options approaches, none of these variables taken alone is assumed to be a reliable surrogate for the uncertainty of the project itself. For example, in assessing the option value of a proven oil reserve, the relevant measure of volatility is the volatility not of oil prices, but of the value of the operating entity,that is, the project value without leverage. The third step attempts to capture managerial flexibility using a decision "tree" that illustrates the decisions to be made, their possible outcomes, and their corresponding probabilities. The article illustrate various kinds of applications, including a phased investment in a chemical plant (which is treated as a compound option) and an investment in a peak-load power plant (a switching option with changing variance, which precludes the use of constant risk-neutral probabilities as in standard decision tree analysis). The fourth and final step uses a "no-arbitrage" approach to form a replicating portfolio with the same payouts as the real option. For most corporate investment projects, it is impossible to locate a "twin security" that trades in the market. In the absence of such a security, the conventional NPV of a project (again, without flexibility) is the best candidate for a perfectly correlated underlying asset because it represents management's best estimate of value based on the expected cash flows of the project. [source] PETROLEUM PROSPECTIVITY OF CRETACEOUS FORMATIONS IN THE GONGOLA BASIN, UPPER BENUE TROUGH, NIGERIA: AN ORGANIC GEOCHEMICAL PERSPECTIVE ON A MIGRATED OIL CONTROVERSYJOURNAL OF PETROLEUM GEOLOGY, Issue 4 2008M. B. Abubakar Organic geochemical studies of Cretaceous formations in the Gongola Basin, northern Nigeria, show TOC values that are generally higher than the minimum (0.5 wt %) required for hydrocarbon generation. Data from Rock-Eval pyrolysis and biomarker studies indicate the presence of both terrestrial and marine derived Types II and III organic matter, which is immature in the Gombe Formation and of marginal maturity in the Yolde Formation. Immature Type III to IV OM is present in the Pindiga Formation; and Type III OM, with a maturity that corresponds to the conventional onset (or perhaps peak) of oil generation occurs in the Bima Formation. However, Bima Formation samples from the 4710 , 4770 ft (1435.6 , 1453.9 m) depth interval within well Nasara-1 indicate Type I OM of perhaps lacustrine origin (H31R/H30 ratio generally ,0.25). Although the Nasara-1 well was reported to be dry, geochemical parameters (high TOCs, S1, S2 and Hls, low Tmax compared to adjacent samples, a bimodal S2 peak on the Rock-Eval pyrogram, a dominance of fluorinite macerals), together with generally low H3IR/H30 biomarker ratios within the 4710,4770 ft (1435.6,1453.9 m) interval, suggest the presence of migrated oil, perhaps sourced by lacustrine shales in the Albian Bima Formation located at as-yet unpenetrated depths. The presence of the migrated oil in the Bima Formation and its possible lacustrine origin suggest that the petroleum system in the Gongola Basin is similar to that of the Termit, Doba and Doseo Basins of the Chad Republic, where economic oil reserves have been encountered. [source] A review of upstream development policies in KuwaitOPEC ENERGY REVIEW, Issue 4 2004Abdulaziz E. Al-Attar Since 1993, Kuwait's legislative bodies have been looking closely at the prospect of opening-up the country's upstream oil sector for development and production to international oil companies (IOCs). The country has proposed doing this by means of a mechanism called an "operating service agreement" (OSA). This has generated controversy. One side argues that opening-up the oil sector embodies a pattern of denationalisation and is reminiscent of the country's former concession agreement of 1934. And the other side maintains that the proposed OSA is unquestionably different to the concession agreement, in terms of legal framework, fiscal system and the role of the state. This paper reviews and compares the two types of agreement. It then discusses the impact of improved oil recovery factors on increasing oil reserves and production in the northern and western Kuwaiti oil fields, by transferring technology from industrialised countries. [source] China's Oil Strategy: "Going Out" to IranASIAN POLITICS AND POLICY, Issue 1 2010Wen-Sheng Chen China's rapid development has drawn worldwide attention and has been referred to as a "peaceful rise" in recent years. The country's booming economy feeds Beijing's insatiable thirst for sufficient, stable, and secure energy sources. This article argues that Iran's plentiful oil reserves and its capacity to produce and export vast quantities of oil make Tehran a natural partner as China pursues its goal of rising to global-power status. Furthermore, Iran's location on the "Energy Silk Road" to China is potentially of great significance for Beijing as it seeks to break out of the "Malacca predicament." This article suggests that China sees an important role for Iran in securing its oil supply and pursuing a "westward oil strategy." The article also demonstrates that China's energy ties with Iran are constrained and conditioned by Sino-U.S. cooperation and competition and by the Middle Eastern power structure. [source] Is disclosure the right way to comply with stakeholders?BUSINESS ETHICS: A EUROPEAN REVIEW, Issue 1 2008The Shell case This paper is part of an ongoing research project and builds upon a previous one in which we explain the failure of the Agency Theory through the Shell case. In that, we analysed the behaviour of Shell managers, who reclassified oil reserves, playing with the share price because they owned share options. This previous paper established an important literature framework that is continued and organized to go deeper into our analysis in this paper. The goal here is to show that the way that is supposed to be the right tool to inform stakeholders , disclosure , is not enough, and even in the Shell case, no one would have noticed the problems with the oil reserves through the mere analysis of the company disclosure during the ,strange period' (1998,2003). The methodology used in this paper is lexical analysis, which seems to be an innovative and effective approach to the analysis of Corporate Social Disclosure, given the un-codified nature of the latter. The conclusions obtained highlight the problem of lack of transparency in the contents of corporate social disclosure: some firms avoid communicating crucial contents, some others twist the results in order to camouflage advantages to shareholders or managers. If it is like this for disclosing firms, what is happening in the case of non-disclosing firms? [source] | ||||||||||